


The Middle Place (Kylo Ren)

by Storyteller_Ren



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Badass Rey, Broken Bones, Canon Compliant, Childhood Memories, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghosts, Forests, Gray Jedi, Kylo Ren Angst, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylo Ren Redemption, Kylo Ren and Rey Are Not Related, Marooned, Masturbation, Nature, OTP Feels, Post-Canon, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Redeemed Ben Solo, Serious Injuries, Sex, Snow, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, The Force, Virgin Kylo Ren, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-16 02:49:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13627008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storyteller_Ren/pseuds/Storyteller_Ren
Summary: A coup by General Hux has left Kylo Ren marooned on a desolate planet on the eve of a cold winter. With no hope of rescue and a silent Bond with Rey, Kylo must figure out how to save himself. But there are much greater forces at work than Kylo realizes, and he will soon discover that his love for Rey might just be the one thing that can save the galaxy… if only the she could find him.





	1. Prologue

She was coming.

She’d said so just seconds before the Force Bond snapped in half. He hadn’t believed her—how did she know where to find him? Yet he could feel her drawing nearer, like the cord that connected them was shrinking.

From the doorway of his cabin, he gazed out across the grassy opening in the trees, across the log piles and sleeping gardens. Overhead, sunlight pushed its way through the pregnant gray clouds. He closed his eyes and felt its gentle warmth on his face one last time before nightfall.

He would not be alone for much longer.


	2. Coup

After the Battle of Crait when Rey closed the door of the Millennium Falcon on him, Kylo Ren feared the connection they’d shared had been severed, that her final rejection had been unwavering enough to overpower the Force itself. But not even a week later their minds linked again, and though he was relieved to stare into her soft dark eyes once more, he couldn’t deny the inconvenience the Bond now caused. On opposite sides of a war that had slogged on for eons, they could not allow their link to divulge pertinent information—battle plans, new weaponry, secret base locations. Rey was tight-lipped as ever, resolute in her commitment to protect the lives of the Resistance members she now considered family. Kylo couldn’t help but feel hatred for these people, the ones whose love and companionship she had chosen over his own. But recalling the scene in Snoke’s throne room, he realized that love and companionship were not what he offered her. Not really.

As time went on, the Bond between them strengthened and where before they could see only each other, now they could see the other’s surroundings. Since neither could predict when the Force Bond would activate, nor could they spend all their time in benign, featureless rooms, something had to be done.

“And what do you propose we do about this, _Supreme Leader_?” Rey mocked from inside a cramped closet full of deconstructed droids. He could sense her wild glee as she spat the insult, how it thrilled her to hurt him for choosing power over peace. Each time she said his new title it felt like a blaster shot to the gut, a shot he knew he deserved.

So they came to a truce of sorts. Neither was willing to reveal the Bond to their allies for fear of banishment—or worse, death—but neither wanted to use the Bond to influence the war either. Something about it felt like a betrayal, like a perversion of the Force.

When Kylo felt the telltale pull—a gentle yet inescapable tug between his ribs—he would retreat to a neutral ground, a middle place. It was a void, black when he arrived, but morphing into steely gray when Rey appeared. Perhaps it was a different dimension altogether, he couldn’t tell, but their agreement to always meet there when the Force connected them was a rule each of them vowed to uphold. How they were able to accomplish such a feat, he didn’t know. But one thing he did know—could feel—was that, as the First Order and the Resistance traded victories, the Force grew stronger within him. And in parallel . . . within Rey.

It was his mother’s death that finally changed everything and led to General Hux’s clever coup. Hux had been sitting on a holovid of Kylo Ren’s murder of Supreme Leader Snoke and his subsequent slaughter of the Praetorian guards with the scavenger Rey—he was just waiting for the perfect time to use it. It was Kylo’s own fault for not seeing what was coming. When one of Hux’s attacks finally took out the Resistance base where General Leia Organa was holed up strategizing, Kylo was, at last, weak enough to drop his guard.

The new supreme leader barely even put up a fight, so sick with grief he was, doubled over and clenching his stomach as if his gloved hands were the only things keeping his entrails from spilling out onto the floor. He didn’t even move for his lightsaber. If only he’d put away his pride and gone home to his mother when Rey gave him the chance? Leia would have gathered him into her arms and brushed his dark hair from his eyes. She would have forgiven him, he knew, for all of it.

Now it was too late.

In that moment Kylo Ren welcomed death, and when Hux’s dagger pierced his side, he relished the pain. Stripped of his weapon and numb to the Force, his world faded to white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always write to music, so I wanted to include some songs at the end of each chapter that inspired me. Enjoy.
> 
> WRITING MUSIC:  
> "Nobody's Fault but My Own" by Beck


	3. Falling

He awoke inside a coffin . . . no, it was an escape pod. And it was on fire.

Flames licked the porthole as his vessel hurtled towards a dense green planet. What was its name? Where in the galaxy had they been when he felt his mother’s soul wink out? He couldn’t remember. He didn’t even care.

His tunic was slick with blood from the wound in his side, but that hardly mattered. One look at the pod’s obliterated landing control pad told him that he was meant to meet his death in a fiery crash on the planet’s surface. That is, if the pod didn’t burn up in the atmosphere first.

_Rey . . ._

He was desperate to open the Force Bond, to see her face one last time, and so he threw his mind out into the universe, summoning the Force, begging it for one final connection. He wasn’t capable of the focus required to hide his surroundings, and he feared the distress it might cause her to witness his final moments . . . but he needed her. It was a selfish deed, the last he would ever attempt.

“Rey!” he called out, his voice disembodied, his eyes straining to see her in the flames outside his pod. “Rey, REEEYYYY!”

He was failing, losing his grasp on the other realm, when he heard her response, saw her shape against the green of the approaching planet.

“Ben!” she howled through the glass, her hair loose and her eyes alight. She was so beautiful. Why had he never told her?

The connection was slipping. There were only seconds left.

“Rey . . . Rey, I’m sorry,” he sobbed, watching her face as it began to fade.

“Ben, no! Don’t leave me. Please . . .”

Her voice broke before it disappeared altogether—but he was left with her suffering. He could _feel_ the words she wanted to say to him, but didn’t.

_No, you can’t die. If you die, I’ll die too. I need you. I need you, Ben . . ._

He couldn’t bear it.

The planet eclipsed his vision now, the green morphing into trees, the trees growing branches, the branches sprouting leaves. His brow was slick with sweat, his eyes stung.

He sent out all of the energy he possessed, imagined it slowing the pod, tilting it horizontal. Then he removed his gloves and pushed his bare hands to the hot metal hull. He poured his life into it, felt its shape become his body, gave it consciousness.

And as it sliced through the clouds, the vessel lifted and the fire around it dimmed. With the last dregs of his energy, Kylo Ren screamed into the suffocating interior, not realizing until the pod was ricocheting off the trees that he was calling her name.

_Rey, Rey, Rey!_

_She wanted him to live._

Then the pod hit the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WRITING MUSIC:  
> "The War" by SYML  
> (This is the most Kylo song to ever exist. Trust me.)


	4. Pain

The pain was unbearable.

He felt it first in his side and then lower. When his vision cleared, he directed his eyes down his trembling body to his right leg. Blinking, he saw blood, so much blood. And smooth white bone. His pulse accelerated, his breaths fogged the porthole.

The pod door was broken and lying sideways over him, wedged against his split bone—the cause of his split bone. Reaching up, he gripped the hot metal and pushed. An agonized bellow broke his lips and he spit saliva down his chin. When he heard the door crash onto the ground, he slumped back against the thin cushion and focused his gaze on the swaying branches high above him.

So much green . . . it was almost peaceful.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to stand—the strong, metallic scent in his nostrils told him he’d lost too much blood. Closing his eyes, he called on the Force and waited to feel its power spark inside him. But the attempt was futile. He had nothing left.

“Help me!” he shrieked, tears pooling in his hollow eyes, but the only answer he received was his own voice echoing back. No one was coming to save him. No one. Not even Rey. When he looked again at the gory ruin of his shin, a wave of hopelessness crushed him. He was going to die. He was going to die here on this strange planet. All alone.

His memory cycled backwards, rushing by like a parade of numberless sorrows, before stopping on the face of his father.

_“Be careful, kid!” Han Solo called through the hallways of the Millennium Falcon. But Ben hadn’t listened, and falling, he scraped his knee on a jagged floor grate. The pain was a shock, white hot and blinding, but Han was there in a flash to scoop little Ben into his arms and hold him close until Leia rounded the corner with a bottle of bacta._

It was, perhaps, Kylo Ren’s first memory.

He let his tears fall heavy and free, a different kind of pain stealing his breath now. Defeated, he turned away . . . and that’s when he saw it.

In his haste to dispose of Kylo, Hux had forgotten to remove the emergency medkit and week’s worth of provisions the escape pod contained. Or, more likely, he thought Kylo wouldn’t be alive to use any of it. But here he was.

Using the toe of his left boot, he nudged the kit forward until he was able to grip the carrying strap. Then he heaved his body over the side of the pod, thankfully falling only a short distance before hitting dirt. He pawed at the kit, and when he found the seam, he yanked hard, springing free a plethora of tightly packed tools.

First he found a tablet to chew for the pain, and in anticipation of what was to come, he popped two more into his mouth and bit down, releasing the bitter flavor. Opening his tunic, he discovered that the gash in his right side was much shallower than it felt, angled down and stopped of its progress where it met his hipbone. He knew he’d be taking a risk closing the wound, but blood was still oozing out and judging by the large stain inside the pod, he couldn’t afford to lose much more. So first he sprayed the wound with bacta, careful to be conservative in his use—the stuff worked like magic, but the medkit contained only one small bottle. Next he located a jagged, bent strip of the pod’s metal hull that still glowed red with heat and pressed it to his side. Indifferent to his suffering, the forest played back his howls of agony.

Panting, crying, and wiping snot from his face, Kylo wasn’t sure he could continue. But he had to—he _had_ to because Rey wanted him to live.

Next he knew he must find a way to set his leg if he ever wanted to use it again, which meant he would need to create a splint. So he searched the area for anything long and sturdy that he could use. Perhaps there was something in the guts of the pod, but his small burst of adrenaline was waning and he didn’t want to waste any of it trying to wrestle free a piece of metal. Luckily, because of the crash, the area was peppered with broken branches, and he quickly located two of roughly the same size.

Pushing strands of dark, sweat-drenched hair from his eyes, he breathed deeply in preparation. Then he tore open his pant leg, exposing the injury. It was bad, but a clean break in the larger of his two shin bones. He applied the bacta a little more liberally this time, hoping it would aid in the mending of the bone. Finally, he felt the tingle of the pain tablets working its way through his body. Good, that was good.

Inhaling, he thrust the bone back through the hole in his skin and aligned it with its other side. Then he exhaled hard, his bottom lip trembling. Even with the tablets, pain ripped a searing hole in his reality—but he had to finish the job. Blood slicked his fingers, making tough work of the already grueling task, but he managed to wrap the wound tightly with a bandage, weaving in the branches as a splint. There was a suture tool in the medkit that he’d overlooked when he’d cauterized his hip. He would use it in the morning after he applied more bacta. For now, he didn’t have the energy.

Reclining for a minute, he gave his hammering heart time to slow. So he’d survived the landing and the initial shock of his injuries, but was there still danger in store for him in the hours to come? He doubted the First Order would bother to come looking for him. If he knew Hux like he thought he did, then the general would already be broadcasting Kylo Ren’s betrayal across the galaxy and assuming the role of supreme leader. He suspected that the Star Destroyer he’d been jettisoned from was, by now, lightyears away from this quiet green world. The relief he felt to be rid of them came as a surprise.

As the sun sunk below the trees and then disappeared altogether inside their dense foliage, Kylo found and removed a silver heat blanket from the kit. Wrapping it around his spent body, he burrowed into the side of the escape pod and thought of Rey once more before he closed his eyes. Perhaps her image would keep him alive through the dark night. And if it did not, at least her face would be the last thing he ever saw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WRITING MUSIC:  
> "Lung" by Vancouver Sleep Clinic


	5. Listen

New daylight awakened Kylo Ren. He was alive. He’d survived the night. The scene around him was just as he’d left it when he closed his eyes . . . but the pain was back.

Quickly, he chewed another tablet and when he felt it start to work, he checked his wounds, applying more bacta and then replacing the dressings. He decided to watch his leg for signs of infection before he used the suture tool to close the skin. It seemed to him a smart choice, but then again, nothing like this had ever happened to him before.

His stomach woke with a rumble and so he dug into his provisions. To prepare the bland little packaged meal, he had to mix the two ingredients to activate them. He knew, as he choked down the gritty food, that Rey had spent nearly twenty years eating the same sort of unappetizing ration. He’d seen it in her head when he interrogated her after taking her from Takodana. Curious, he pushed his mind into the void, but there was nothing—no void to be found in the first place. The Bond was inaccessible, silent.

After the dry tasteless breakfast, his thirst was intense. And he was, no doubt, dehydrated. Draining the small flask of water inside the kit, he knew he’d have to find a water source if he were to survive. So perhaps that could be his first task—no, his _second_. First, he had to find out if he could stand up.

Bracing himself on the pod, he pushed his body into a crouch, resting all of his weight on his left leg and keeping his right extended in front of him. He allowed a wave of nausea to roll through him before he unfolded the rest of the way. He was steady, but knew he’d need a crutch if he wanted to walk, so he spent his morning fashioning one from fallen branches.

A few hours later, with his bag of supplies slung over his shoulder, he hobbled away from the pod’s wreckage in search of fresh water, but he didn’t get far before the pain in his leg flared up again. Finding respite against a thick tree, he tilted his head skyward and marveled at the tree’s impressive height. How steadfast it was, how eternal.

And, suddenly, Kylo Ren felt small . . . so very small.

His chest grew heavy. His breath was trapped inside him, unable to find its way out. What was he supposed to do? He wanted to rage, to tear these ancient trees to shreds and watch them topple. Anger helped him breathe, it gave him focus, but it never gave him lasting relief. When he was finished and the objects before him lay in ruins, all of the pain, all the anger, would come rushing back tenfold. That was something he could always depend on. The _only_ thing he could depend on. And yet . . .

Desperate and trembling, he tried the Bond again, pushing out from the place between his ribs, from his heart, and he called to her.

“Rey . . . ?” he whispered. “Please help me. Please . . .”

The answer he received was not from Rey. Perhaps it wasn’t even real, just a voice inside his head. It said one word.

_“Listen . . .”_

He was confused at first, expecting further instruction. Instead, a bird’s call sounded in the trees high above him and understanding came.

Closing his eyes, he listened to the forest, felt it breathe.

Small animals rustled in the underbrush or scratched the dirt for food. Birds unfurled their wings in the cool air above the treetops, allowing the wind to carry them to their lofty nests. The branches creaked and swayed, the leaves quivered, water trickled gently.

_Water._

He concentrated hard, praying that his excitement wouldn’t cause him to lose his grip on the sound. The placidity of the flow told him that it was a small stream, perhaps just a few feet across. But there was dribbling too, air bubbles, liquid moving over rocks. After another minute, he knew where the stream was.

His leg was throbbing by the time he found it, and he all but crashed to the riverbank in a heap of trembling muscles, but he cupped his hands and drank to his body’s satisfaction. The water was translucent and clean. It coated his throat like a healing tonic. His kit contained a filter, but in his haste he’d forgotten to use it. No matter, though, this water was from higher altitudes, from a shimmering snowpack. He could taste it.

Kylo Ren made camp on the riverbank and he used the flints inside his kit to start a fire, but his second night on this strange planet was colder than his first, and the third even colder still. He had ventured as far as his injuries would let him go and found nothing. No shelter, no sign of civilized life. His heat blanket had finally torn and his rations were fast disappearing and he hadn’t the first notion of how to hunt. He was coming to an impasse, he knew.

The fourth night it started to snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WRITING MUSIC:  
> "Twins" by Gem Club


	6. Cold

Every muscle in his body ached after a long night of vicious shivering. He hadn’t slept at all, but he wasn’t sure he had even wanted to. If he was awake, he decided, he could keep watch for death, for its telltale shadow—darker than black.

Days ago, before he’d ventured away from the pod, he’d had sense enough to retrieve his gloves, but his fingers barely thanked him. Pain shot through his hands as he uncurled the tight fists he’d been making. He brushed the snow from his legs—the resilient flakes that hadn’t melted or been jostled loose by his body’s merciless quaking. He counted at least an inch or two of powder on the flat, open sections of forest floor. It would pose a problem, he knew, especially if there was more on the way. He looked down at the campfire at his feet, now just a blackened pile of mush. No match for the heavy, wet flakes, it had snuffed out just as soon as the wood became too damp stay lit. Kylo Ren’s frozen lips cracked apart as he sucked in an icy breath.

He wouldn’t survive another night like this.

He had to do something. He had to get up and move. He had to find shelter.

First he checked his injuries, cursing his stiff joints until they bent for him. His leg hurt even worse than it had the night before, but he no longer feared infection. Since closing the wound two days ago, there had been no reason for alarm—no fever or swollen red skin. No green pus or rotten odor. Only pain. The pain never ceased. And he’d long ago chewed his last tablet. He dismissed any notion of irony when he considered his constant physical agony. It wasn’t funny—even if it was deserved.

After he’d eaten another package of food, he felt thawed enough to walk again, and so he set out in search of the crash site. He’d decided that any hope he had of surviving lie in locating the pod. Perhaps he could sleep inside of it or use its shell and broken door to make a shelter. It was the only plan he had, but it was a plan, nonetheless.

As daylight warmed the forest, he tramped through the melting snow, leaving muddy footprints in his wake. Water dripped from the trees, spattering his body as he passed underneath, and by midday he was soaked and shivering again, but he stopped whenever he came across a bountiful waterspout and opened his mouth to its stream. There were some things, at least, that he could be thankful for.

When he felt the cold began to deepen, he knew darkness was fast approaching. Where was the pod? The forest was changed—not firm and green as it had been when he crashed, but drooping and white. He opened himself to the Force for even just a sliver of guidance, but his senses were deadened, completely drained. He was weak, weaker than he’d ever been before. But even worse, he was lost. There was no doubt about it. And he’d wasted all the heat of daylight searching for a lifeline that would’ve, at best, bought him another week. Once winter set in—and it was coming—the cold would creep inside him and wrap his heart in a frozen fist. Would he feel his very last heartbeat? Would he think of her?

He felt his knees buckle, felt his crutch slide sideways and his body lurch forward, but a bed of soft snow broke his fall. He gripped the powder inside tight fists. The last time he had lain prostrate and near death in a wintry forest, Rey was towering above him holding his grandfather’s lightsaber. How full of hatred she’d been, how radiant with new power. And he had only stared at her in awe, this mad, beautiful woman, his equal in the Force. To be cut down by such a creature was an ecstasy he hadn’t deserved. For a monster like him, a cold and lonesome death was more befitting.

As daylight gave way to darkness and fat snowflakes began to fall again, Kylo Ren allowed hot tears to slide down his cheeks. He knew the tears would eventually freeze, but it didn’t matter. No one would ever see them. He pressed his lips together and swallowed anxiously. How would he greet death? What would he say when its shadow, darker than black, descended upon him? He’d always lived as if he’d been unafraid to die. But now he was afraid.

CRRRAAACK!

His head shot up and his eyes scanned the trees. It couldn’t be death. Death would come quietly, slowly. Heart hammering, a flood of adrenaline warmed his veins.

It was dark now—no moonlight or stars through the dense trees.

But then there _was_ a light, blue and small and growing bigger.

Kylo sat motionless as the light came into focus. As it _walked_ toward him.

Was it . . . ? No, it couldn’t be. He was older, his hair grayer and beard longer. But it was him. It was Luke.

He looked different than he had on Crait, less solid. His figure gleamed with astral iridescence . . . with the Force. He _was_ the Force. There was no division, no corporeal baggage. He was like a god.

Luke’s eyes found Kylo’s in the darkness and held them for a heavy moment. A thousand different words seemed to pass through the tether of their stare, but Kylo couldn’t put a finger on any of them. He could only hope that his uncle, in his new omniscient form, understood what was in his heart, even if he didn’t understand it himself.

Luke lowered his eyes and turned from his nephew. Then he began to walk away. But understanding enveloped Kylo like a warm cocoon, like it had when he’d heard Luke’s voice telling him to listen. It _was_ Luke’s voice that first hopeless day in the forest. Of course it was Luke.

Grabbing his crutch and medkit, Kylo stumbled to his feet and loped off after his uncle, following the gleam of his ghostly blue body. His leg throbbed and his feet went numb as he dragged them through the snow and mud, but he couldn’t stop.

Finally they came to a clearing. In the sky above them, a silver moon shone through the wending gray clouds. Luke stopped and looked back, finding Kylo’s eyes once more.

“Luke,” Kylo mumbled, a sob bubbling in his chest. For so long all he could think about was killing this man—his uncle, his mentor, his friend—but he’d never really wanted him dead, he’d only wanted the pain Luke caused him to end. It was this same confusion, this mistaken merging of revenge and release, that led him to murder his own father. _He’d murdered his own father._ But wasn’t there room enough in one man for all of it? For anger and peace, for hatred and love? There had to be . . . _there had to be._

As Luke began to disintegrate, Kylo Ren pitched forward, stretching out a desperate hand for his uncle. He was wrong to kill his past—he had to hold on to it with every ounce of might he had left. “Stay with me,” he cried as his hand passed through wet snowflakes and cold dead air. “I don’t want to die alone.”

But he wouldn’t die, not that night. For, ahead, in a beam of moonlight, was a cabin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WRITING MUSIC:  
> "Stakes" by Vancouver Sleep Clinic


	7. Cabin

The cabin was small, but the walls were thick. Made of the same wood as the robust trees that swathed the planet, it was indestructible and held heat remarkably well as long as a fire burned in the hearth. Thankfully, there were a few logs in a straw basket that Kylo Ren tossed inside the hearth and ignited just as soon as he’d crossed the cabin’s threshold. He’d never slept as deeply as he did that night, but a chill awakened him the next morning, reminding him that he wasn’t out of danger just yet.

Nobody lived in the cabin, so far as Kylo Ren could tell. A stiff layer of dust coated every surface, including two sets of dishes arranged on the small dining table. The bed linens smelled stale and unused, but there was a large depression in the center of the lumpy mattress and two feather pillows against the headboard. A wardrobe as tall as Kylo was jammed full of clothing—woven sweaters and thick trousers for a man as well as a woman’s collection of embroidered dresses. Kylo ran his fingers along the heavy fabric of one of the dresses and was abruptly overcome with melancholy. He wasn’t sure why.

Shivering, he turned his attention to the blackened belly of the hearth. He would need more wood.

On the east side of the cabin sat a shaded log pile. Examining the large cylindrical logs, Kylo knew they would need to be cut down if they were to fit inside the hearth. Wishing he had his lightsaber instead, he gripped the cool handle of the axe that sat propped against the cabin. It was much heavier than his lightsaber with its bulk concentrated on the far end instead of the shaft. Adding to his discomfort, he was forced to swing with his left hand while his more dominant right hand held his crutch. He practiced the motion a few times, but when he brought the axe down with his full strength, he lost his balance and toppled into the sticky mud. Cursing, he looked at the log and found that he’d missed it completely. It took him nearly every hour of sunshine to cut enough wood to keep him warm for the next day. After he’d understood that the axe needed sharpening, he had an easier time of it. Still, he went to bed that night filthy and sore, the pain in his broken leg so severe that he wasn’t sure if he’d fallen asleep or blacked out.

The next day he went looking for food and found seven jars of preserved vegetables and jellies inside a dark cabinet. He pulled them out and grouped them together on the dusty dining table. Then he opened two different-looking ones and began to eat. Some of it was a bit sour, like it was spoilt or very near it, but Kylo enjoyed the taste more than he did the gritty food from the escape pod’s provisions. He only had five of those little packages left. Adding them to the seven jars on the table he guessed that he had another week’s worth of food. But that was it. There was nothing else to eat. The gardens in the front of the cabin would grow food, but not during winter. There were animals in the forest that he could cook and eat, but he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to kill them. With the axe?

Kylo felt a dull ache blooming between his eyes and so he limped to the bed where he collapsed between the warm blankets. Repositioning the pillow to better hold his throbbing head, he felt something strange on the hem of the pillowcase. Pulling the pillow into the light, he found two letters embroidered in forest green.

N.D.

Convinced of what else he might find, he checked the hem of the other pillowcase, and sure enough, there were two violet letters.

T.D.

“Who were you?” he asked. But no one answered, and any attempt to answer the question himself just made his head hurt worse. Turning back around, he pulled the blankets to his chin and closed his eyes. He spent the rest of the day there, in the cavity of the bed with his legs bent so his feet wouldn’t hang past the mattress’s edge. He could save thinking for tomorrow. For now, he just wanted to disappear.

He drank melted snow with his early meal the next day, and after a few hours chopping wood, he heated some water and used it to wash. His black supreme leader’s outfit was nearly fused to his skin, so caked with filth it was, but he managed to peel away each layer, exposing the pale body beneath. It had been more than a week since he’d stood naked before a mirror. This one was cracked and turning brown at the edges, but it showed his reflection nonetheless. A purple bruise stained his underarm where he kept the crutch wedged so he could walk. And he had new scars. He always had new scars. He traced the pink shape of the one on his hip. His fingers were dry and calloused, but he closed his eyes anyway and imagined that Rey was touching him instead. He tried the Bond again, not caring that he was naked—perhaps it would help him say the things he needed to say, the things he’d always kept hidden from her—but there was nothing.

After his bath, Kylo found a razor and a frothy balm to shave with. Unlike the axe, the razor was still sharp, resulting in more than a couple of nicks on the raised skin around his scar. But he did a fine job, he thought, considering he hadn’t had much practice using an old-fashioned blade. When he was finished tending to his face, he went to the wardrobe and, averting his eyes from the woman’s dreary garb, he selected from the man’s side a cream colored shirt with a little green leaf stitched on the sleeve. When he put it on, it strained against his broad shoulders, so he moved his arms in circles, stretching the stiff fabric until it felt more comfortable. Sitting on the bed, he pulled a dark pair of pants over his legs. They fit in the waist, but when he stood up, the hems sat just above his ankles. He supposed some thick, knitted socks would cover the exposed skin. Opening a drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe, he revealed, not socks, but a carved wooden box with a tarnished lock. Lifting it out of the drawer, he felt its considerable weight and wondered what might be inside. What could be so sacred that it wasn’t already safe enough in a secluded cabin?

“What happened to you?” Kylo asked the clothes in the wardrobe. If the man and woman that lived there had simply awoken one day and decided to leave, then why didn’t they take their most essential belongings? And where could they have gone? If there was a village or spaceport within a hundred miles, Kylo thought, then perhaps he could leave this planet. But with his leg on the mend and winter only just beginning, he wasn’t sure it’d be possible until springtime. And it definitely wouldn’t be possible if he didn’t find something to eat in the meantime. He spent a few minutes looking for the key, but abandoned the search when it didn’t deliver a swift result.

Later he collected more snow and heated it in the wash basin. And because he could no longer stand to look at it, he scrubbed clean the expensive fabric of his black pants and tunic and hung them in front of the fire to dry.

Just before nightfall, he pulled on the man’s heavy coat and gloves and hobbled outside. Searching a small shed beside the cabin, he found an archaic looking projectile weapon. It reminded him of the bowcaster his father’s Wookiee companion carried, but this crossbow was more crudely constructed than Chewbacca’s. Beside it was a box of heavy, pointed bolts. He guessed that the weapon fired these bolts, though he wasn’t immediately sure how. Gripping the crossbow in one hand and the ammunition in the other, he left the shed and reentered the cabin. Tonight he would study the weapon. And tomorrow . . . tomorrow he would learn to hunt.

But hunting did not go well.

Kylo fired bolt after bolt at zigzagging shapes in the treetops before he realized that he was running out of ammo. Even after a short break midway to focus his senses, no dead birds graciously tumbled down to him on the forest floor. He’d always thought his aim was above average, but this bulky, handmade crossbow felt awkward in his hands. And besides that, his index finger barely fit inside the trigger nook. He couldn’t retrieve the bolts he’d fired into the trees either. Even if they’d managed to puncture the canopy and come back down, they could be miles away and his leg just wouldn’t let him wander that far. Plus, searching for the bolts would take hours and with daylight growing shorter each day, time was not on his side. He’d think of something—he had too. And then he’d try again tomorrow.

A long night of fitful sleep was exactly what Kylo didn’t need to help him prepare for his second day of hunting. The half foot of snow that fell during the night didn’t help him either—especially since he’d decided to give up shooting a bird and focus instead on the furry creatures that roamed the forest floor. He couldn’t even see the forest floor from the cabin’s doorway. He loosed a heavy sigh as he stepped from the hearth’s warmth and into the frosty cold. His breath clouded around him.

Poking holes in the snowdrifts with his crutch, he staggered around to the backside of the cabin. He hadn’t been to this patch of forest yet. Maybe the trees were thick enough back here that their crowded branches had captured some of the snowfall.

He wasn’t entirely wrong. The snow was shallower behind the cabin, shallow enough that he could see a lot more of the forest floor—including a narrow path lined with smooth stones.

Curious, he followed the path, already forgetting the day’s impossible task. A strange heaviness had taken hold of him and it had nothing to do with fatigue or even pain. This was something else.

His grip on the crossbow tightened as he saw, in the distance, another clearing. His left leg felt like putty, but he made it strong as he loped the rest of the way. Like the path, the clearing was lined with the same smooth stones, but because the trees were parted, the stones were buried in glistening snow. Everything inside the clearing was painted pristine white. The trellises and gardens, the leafless flora. And the bench in the center—

The crossbow tumbled from Kylo’s hand as he drew a frigid breath.

They were there, on the bench. N.D. and T.D.

He saw their shapes, the shape they made together, huddled under a cold blanket of snow. They were dead, of course. But he had to know why. The strange heaviness he felt would not lift until he knew the truth.

It felt almost like a desecration to drag his boots across the threshold of the clearing. This was a sacred space—a space so full of love that death itself could not frighten inside its border. Kylo reached out a trembling hand and wiped the powder from the icy cadavers. He’d seen dead bodies before—he’d created them—but he’d never seen two so at peace. Even nature had left them alone. Arms still encircling one another, the woman’s head rested on her husband’s chest, perhaps to listen for his final heartbeat. Their skin was not skin anymore, nor were they skeletons—they were something in between. As sunlight found their exposed flesh, it went to work melting the snow around it. Little by little, trickles of water dissolved the white crust, revealing hair and clothes . . . and a tarnished key hanging on a cord around the man’s neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WRITING MUSIC:  
> "House of the Rising Sun" by alt-J  
> "For Now I am Winter" by Olafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm


	8. Balance

The contents of the box made all the difference.

When Kylo Ren lifted the lid, dozens of bound journals stared up at him, each woven spine unique to his eye. The pages were coarse and handmade and filled with pictures and words—handwritten words—in a rainbow of rich colors.

There were maps of the terrain and detailed notes on the flora and fauna. There were illustrations of embroidery stitches and recipes for dyes and medicines. There were instructions for basic home repair and records of weather patterns from years past. There were diagrams of hunting snares and traps, and there was even a recipe for a pain relief tea made from powdered tree bark.

He laughed stupidly as he flipped through the pages. In his hands he held decades of knowledge, everything he would ever need to know to make a life here. And he could do it too. He could pass his years in isolation without ever learning the fate of this act of the great galactic war. Would General Hux finally wipe out the Resistance? He’d already severed its head when he killed Leia Organa. Perhaps it would be easy to stomp out the flames that Leia had stoked. Perhaps the Resistance was already gone. And Rey . . . if the Force Bond never connected them again, could he live a quiet, contented life without knowing _her_ fate?

He replaced the journal he was holding and pulled out the only one he hadn’t looked at yet—the thickest and most ornate. This one was full of words, just words, in two different sets of handwriting. It told their story.

Neem and Thea Druyan came to this planet when they were barely twenty years old. On the run from the Empire, they hired a smuggler to bring them to these obscure woods where they lived with no connection to the greater galaxy for more than thirty years. They had a happy life, a quiet life. A life filled with love. But last year, Thea became sick and without medical care, there was little chance she would recover. Instead of letting her deteriorate and die alone, they decided to die together in the garden they’d made, beneath the trees that had always protected them. They wouldn’t suffer. In the frigid cold, death was gentle and as their bodies lost consciousness, death froze their breath and stopped their hearts. They left this forest just as they’d entered it—together.

As Kylo scanned every word of the final journal, he pieced together the truth of this abandoned outer rim planet, the truth that there was nothing but trees and mountain peaks for thousands of miles around him, no villages or spaceports on this side of the small green world—no spaceports at all—and no reason for a shuttle to ever visit. In their entire story, the Druyans never once gave the name of this planet. They never listed coordinates or drew a map to explain where in the outer rim they were. And it was because they never knew. The smuggler who brought them here had been a friend, a good friend—though not once did they say his name. They’d entrusted him to choose a place where they would be safe, where they would be happy and free. Only one person in the galaxy had ever known they were here. And now only Kylo Ren knew what had happened to them.

He slumped over onto his side and pressed his cheek to the cold floor. He breathed into it, seeking solace in its firmness. Like the Druyans, only one person in the galaxy knew where he was too, and he doubted Hux would ever divulge the secret.

So that was it. His old life was over. There was nothing of it left for him. The life Neem and Thea made together was his now. Their cabin belonged to him. This was his story to tell . . . so long as he was content telling it alone.

He buried them where he found them, beneath the frozen gardens in the special place they’d created. It was grueling work and his leg protested from start to finish, but it was the least he could give them. He owed them much more.

Winter settled in without fanfare. Little by little the air grew colder and the snow deeper, but with the help of the journals, Kylo Ren was no longer afraid. In spite of its bitter flavor, the tree bark tea lessened the pain in his leg enough that he could stay on it for longer periods of time. This was a good thing—because he needed to eat. Using tools he found in the shed, the snares and traps were not difficult to construct. He set them where the journals said to set them, near the stream west of the cabin, and by the beginning of his second week on this planet, he sat down to eat his first warm meal. Funny, a man who, once, had not balked when ordering the death of an entire village now found himself recoiling as he killed his dinner. He was not fond of slitting their downy throats with the silver hunting knife or staining his fingers with their sticky blood, but he did what he had to do. Until . . .

He felt it return one day in the Druyans’ garden—the Force. He felt it bloom in his heart and push outward, warming his veins. From his spot on the damp bench, he scanned the trees, hoping to see her— _Rey, oh Rey!_ —but the Bond had not come back, just the energy that created it. Still, it was enough. Now he could peacefully wipe the animals’ minds before he stopped their hearts, now he could melt snow without lighting a fire. Now he could lay his hands on a tree and feel its lifeforce, and if the tree was sick, he could uproot it and move it into the clearing to be chopped down for the hearth.

And so he fell into a routine. In the morning he collected winter-growing juiceberries and made them into mouthwatering jellies, and in the afternoon he checked his traps or cut wood for the fire. He ate his meals on one side of the small dining table, ignoring the other set of unused dishes and staring glassy-eyed at the fire. His evenings he passed studying the journals until he no longer had to reference them, until he knew every word of the Druyans’ story by heart. Theirs had not been a bad life. And Kylo Ren’s wasn’t either.

But at night he wept. He wept for his father and for Luke and for the man he had become without them. He took time to mourn them, to feel the sadness their deaths caused him and the role he played in each one. But he wept for his mother most of all, and he allowed the pain to destroy him. He allowed every memory he had of her—her laugh, her smell, her touch on his brow—to split him in two. He felt every single bit of it . . . because he had to. It was the only road to salvation, he knew. The only way he could meet death—whenever it came for him—with a healed heart.

One morning, when the pain in his leg was little more than a flicker, he awoke in a warm sunbeam. His whole body was alive, including a part of him that he’d long been neglecting. Curious, he touched himself there and was surprised by the delicious ache. In another second, longing had flooded him so thoroughly that he was sick with it. Breathing hard, he closed his eyes and imagined a woman’s naked shape filling the bed’s empty side, imagined her eager hands reaching for him through the blinding white light. But when her face came into focus, it wasn’t a stranger he saw—it was Rey, flushed and smiling. As his body responded, a groan surfaced from deep within him. He knew better than to believe she was actually there, so he kept his eyes closed tight—where he could see her—until he was sated.

It had been many weeks since he’d been left for dead, but his isolation started long before that. Now he yearned for another’s touch, for friendship, for conversation . . . for love. He wasn’t sure if Rey could ever love him the way he so desperately wanted her to, but there had been something in the way she looked at him. Like her heart was being pulled in opposite directions. He understood what it was when he first saw it in her . . . because he felt it too. He always felt it.

As time passed, he shortened his crutch to a cane and began walking again. It was strange at first, using both feet, but before long he adjusted to the new limits of his body—the limp that would forever shrink his once bounding, long-legged strides. He realized one evening as he was waiting with a hungry belly for dinner to cook, that his impatience had never really led him anywhere good and perhaps slowing down was just what he’d needed. It was irony he didn’t mind laughing at. Most days the pain in his leg was tolerable, sometimes even quiet, but it was nowhere near the magnitude of pain he had lived with for nearly a decade, the pain that was finally beginning to lift.

On clear days, when there was more than enough wood for the fire and dinner was still hours away, he sat outside and stared up at the empty sky through the break in the trees. There were never any shuttles passing high overhead, never the faint silhouette of a cruiser in orbit. But then there wouldn’t be. Not out here. There was no trace of the universe he’d once known out here, nothing but the parts of it he carried with him.

And he felt it, the solitude, quelling his rage. He felt nature, not as separate from his body, but as the very same thing. When he looked up at the stars, he didn’t see them as light sources for other worlds—worlds he’d walked upon with his own two feet—he saw them as his ancestors, his family. In his Jedi training he’d learned that everything in the cosmos came from the burning cores of exploding stars. He hadn’t fully understood then what that meant, how it revealed the Force with such undeniable clarity. The Force was inside everything because every _thing_ came from the Force. And not just atoms, but the arrangement of atoms—the infinite and unique patterns of life and the universe of feeling that binds it all together. Anger and jealousy, sadness and fear and joy . . . and love. That, of trillions of beings, only a handful has the power to break your heart. That, between love and hate, there is only a thin veil, something so delicate and ephemeral that it’s easy to forget which side you’re standing on.

He heard her voice sometimes—his mother—from a time before he ever felt the Force, before he even knew what it was. She would wrap him in her arms and brush his dark hair from his eyes so she could see them. “My sweet boy,” she’d say. “Do you know that I love you more than the whole universe?” And he would nod and smile. He had believed her—of course he had. Even now, understanding that there was nothing greater than the universe, he still believed her. Because love was that big.

_That_ was the balance.

Love. The only force with the power to create a life _and_ destroy one.

It had always been love.

He let the enormity of it all crush him, let waves of feeling sweep over him, drawing him out into a warm and welcoming ocean. And he began to accept the human heart—his heart—as the unknowable thing it was. Though his universe was smaller now, there was room for so much more inside of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WRITING MUSIC:  
> "Disappeared" by Majical Cloudz  
> "Holocene" by Bon Iver


	9. Bound

It happened again the day he accepted his fate. The very second he did.

Exhaling wistfully, he raised the axe over his head and as his strong arms brought it down, the Force Bond yawned open. And he saw her.

“Ben . . .”

His heart lurched, the string that connected them jerking hard, and he thought for a sliver of a second that she was actually there with him. Her shape was solid—her chest heaving, her eyebrows drawn together in confusion—but behind her was an unfamiliar hangar.

The log at his feet was split in two, the axe wedged between the pieces. He released the handle and limped closer to her.

“You’re . . . you’re . . .” she said, her lips trembling. So he answered for her.

“Alive.” He was so unaccustomed to using it that his voice sounded strange to him.

“No. I knew you were alive,” she asserted. “I would have known if you’d died. I would have felt it.” This time she stepped nearer to him and allowed her eyes to scan his body—his new clothes, the cane stuck in the soft ground behind him. “You’re . . . okay.”

It wasn’t a question, but he answered anyway. “Yes.” Could she feel his heart? Because it was screaming. “And you?”

Rey’s eyes glistened with tears, but she tightened her jaw and nodded half a dozen times. Kylo would’ve smiled if he thought she would understand. After all this time, after all the battles they’d fought together and apart, she was still the same stubborn scavenger that had seen behind his mask when no one else wanted to.

He moved closer, but not too close. He couldn’t tell her where he was, he couldn’t ask her to come rescue him. He could only look at her.

And god she was beautiful.

When she met his eyes again, he saw it—the storm of emotion within her. He tried to pass through the Bond the serenity this forest had given him, but the lightyears that separated them were too vast. And he missed her too much.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said suddenly, her voice full of venom. If not for her soft, wet eyes he might’ve believed she hated him.

“Like what?”

“Like you love me.”

His answer came as easily as breathing

“I do.”

Tears finally spilled down her cheeks and then she was bounding toward him, her arms reaching for his face. He felt her hands pass through his body, felt their tether begin to tangle. Once they had been able to touch during a Force Bond, but it was just their fingertips and they had eased into it, given their atoms time to bridge the cosmos. Now, in this odd, half-forest half-hangar world they inhabited, fingertips wouldn’t be enough.

“No,” she bellowed, stepping closer and closer, until their bodies overlapped. She waved her arms, searching for some solid part of him, the black diamond of his love that she could pluck from his chest and keep forever.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, his lips joining with her ear. “It’s okay.”

The Bond was slipping, twisting spacetime around and around until it became so thin in the middle that it would finally break apart. Kylo felt the push back into his own world, and he knew that Rey must feel it too.

She backed away from him, but she found his eyes. “I’m coming for you,” she said, soft like a whisper.

_What?_

She wiped her tears and said it again, this time loud enough for the stars to hear. “I’m coming for you, Ben Solo. So stay where you are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WRITING MUSIC:  
> "Bugs Don't Buzz" by Majical Cloudz


	10. Nobody

Rey _was_ coming.

He could feel her drawing nearer, like the cord that connected them was shrinking.

How did she know where he was when he didn’t even know himself? Had she captured General Hux? Had she invaded his mind with the Force and taken from it Kylo’s location? No, that wasn’t it. Something else had given her the answer—the same thing that kept pushing them together. Whatever it was, Kylo Ren believed in it. He trusted in its goodness.

Snow was falling when he opened the cabin door again. A fire roared in the hearth behind him, the very same logs he’d split earlier glowing red hot. He’d had time to prepare for her arrival. He’d eaten his dinner and washed the dirty dishes. He’d swept the floor and dusted the table. He even had time for a bath. And all the while, the distance between them was winding tighter and tighter, until his heart was heavy with ache.

When he felt the wind pick up, he directed his eyes to the thick smear of clouds overhead. The air was too cold and thin to fill his lungs and slow his hammering heart, so he huffed like an animal, gripping the doorjamb for support. What if he’d survived all this time only to drop dead the very moment they stood together again? It would be worth it, he thought, just to see her face or feel her touch.

Then the clouds began to churn and light pierced the fog. A ship he’d seen a hundred times before descended into the clearing, fitting snugly between the trees. Its landing gear unfolded, crushing the dormant gardens and blowing aside the snowdrifts. Kylo pressed his bare hand to his heart and felt it accelerate.

When the ramp started lowering, he stepped out into the cold. The snow stuck to his dark hair, but he couldn’t move to smooth it away. He could scarcely breathe.

She was there. In the light within the Millennium Falcon.

_Rey._

She walked down the ramp and when her feet met the white powder at the bottom, she stopped. Time stopped.

Something inside of him broke as he gazed into her eyes. The tether that had bound them snapped in half and now he was flailing. He limped forward, willing his tired legs to take him safely to her arms, but she met him halfway and her lips were on his before a word was spoken.

He leaned into the kiss, winding his fingers in her unbound hair and when she opened her mouth, he tasted her, felt her tongue slide over his teeth. She gripped the hair above his ears as a sob passed her lips. The hot shape of it filled Kylo’s mouth and stole his breath. But he didn’t need to breathe. He was more alive than he’d ever been before.

When she pulled away, her eyes gleamed with angry tears. “We both saw it . . . our future,” she cried. “We’re supposed to be together.” The time they’d touched through the Bond, the Force had shown them a vision, one where they’d walked hand in hand. They’d seen the same thing and felt the devastating love it contained, but they had read it differently.

“I know.”

She scowled, unsatisfied. “But how? If not the light side or the dark . . . then where?”

Snowflakes caught in her eyelashes and she blinked them away as she waited for his response. He let his hand slide from her cheek down her neck. Her pulse throbbed in his palm.

“Here,” he said, touching his fingers to her heart, the spot where their connection began. “Between light and dark. In our middle place.”

She tightened her jaw, steeling herself against an invisible pain. Behind her eyes the tug of war continued. But then, in one unremarkable millisecond . . . it stopped.

“Well, it’ll have to be there,” she said, her mouth falling open to expose her bottom teeth. “Because I don’t think I can live without you.”

There wasn’t a moment to think before her lips were on his again, and this time her kiss was urgent, unapologetic. Light bloomed in his chest, and when she pushed him backwards into the cabin, he moved with newfound energy.

Inside, they broke apart so she could close the door and he withdrew into the flickering pocket of heat. When she turned around, she did not rush at him. Instead, she let her eyes take in the small wooden cabin that had become his home—the wardrobe and cracked mirror, the dining table and dishes. And the bed.

Her face was flushed and snow-damp when she met his gaze again. But it was decided. The storm she’d been weathering since the Force awakened inside of her . . . she’d just emerged on the other side.

Rey looked him over as she paced closer, and when she was before him once more, she reached up to touch his face. She found his scar—the one she’d made—and traced the length of it, making Kylo shudder as sensation returned to the dead tissue. But even stranger, his shirt opened without any coaxing, allowing her fingers to follow the scar all the way to its end. Breathing heavy, his naked chest swelled to span the inches that separated them. His insides coiled up again and a vicious tension grabbed ahold of him. He could’ve taken her right then on the table, the dishes shuddering until they tumbled off and broke, but he let her continue exploring his body, let her touch every mark and blemish until she’d had enough. And yet when she flicked her wrist and his shirt slipped off the rest of the way, he could wait no longer.

He claimed her lips with his while he pulled at her belt, but the buckle was already releasing and as soon as it came loose, it dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. Parting her tunic, he curled his arms around her waist, marveling at the feel of her naked body against his. When his boots pulled free of his feet, he stepped out of them and kicked them aside. He wasn’t sure if she was removing their clothes this way or they both were. But it didn’t matter so long as they stood naked before each other when it was finished.

All he had to do was imagine the taste of her sun-kissed skin and her tunic fell to her feet. He bent low to kiss her shoulder and licked the dusting of brown freckles there, all sunshine and warmth. She whimpered from the sensation and plunged her hands beneath his waistband. Obeying her command, his pants unfastened and then she was touching him where no woman had before.

It was too much.

He groaned against her shoulder, pressing his teeth into her soft flesh. She felt so small in his arms, like he could crush their bodies into one with a single squeeze. As she stroked him, Kylo felt his pants sliding down his hips, felt hers coming off too, and when at last they stood naked and wholly submersed in the fire’s glow, he kissed her again.

She clawed at his chest, rising on her toes to deepen the kiss, so he gripped her backside and lifted her from the floor. Her legs coiled around his waist, holding him between taut muscles. Despite the dewy coolness the snow left on his skin, he felt heat just above his navel where her legs were spread, felt her slide against him, slick with desire.

Beneath her, he stiffened painfully and in his desperation he heaved her onto the bed, her naked body bucking with whiplash. Afraid he had been too rough, he crawled over her, seeking her response . . . but in her eyes he found only fire.

They crashed their hips together, rubbing them back and forth until it hurt. Their hands tried to be everywhere at once, their mouths tried to taste everything.

It wasn’t enough.

She took ahold of his cock and guided it to the wet spot between her legs and in one mindless thrust he was inside of her. She cried out, tensing around him, and he nearly let go right then. He paused instead, his bottom lip quivering in the dip above her collarbone.

“Don’t stop,” Rey pleaded, adjusting her hips and moving him deeper.

Before long he found a manageable rhythm, but his whole world was quaking, the ground splitting and magma bubbling up through the cracks. Closing his eyes, he strained to remember who he had been before this moment. Because already he was becoming something new.

When he felt her hand on his face, he leaned into it, waking from his trance. She rose to kiss him, but he was breathing too hard to hold it.

“It’s okay . . . let me,” she said. Then she clenched her thighs to keep them joined and rolled him onto his back.

Astride him now, Rey decided how fast and hard to go, and without that burden, Kylo could take it all in. Her hair was longer than he remembered. It fell across her shoulders in glossy waves, still damp with snow. Next to her bronzed skin, his looked bloodless and cold, but there was nothing cold in the space they inhabited. Not in the twist of blankets and pillows and grinding flesh. Even the air thrummed with heat.

Kylo gripped her thighs and squeezed, allowing a wave of pleasure to roll through him. He wasn’t ready to let it take him just yet. Sweat dripped down her neck in a glistening line and he rose to intercept it with his tongue. She moaned and he felt the vibration as he sucked at her throat. But then her body stilled and the firelight held her in its glimmer. She smoothed the hair from his face so she could see his eyes. In her shadow, they were almost black.

“I love you,” she murmured.

Joy tore through his heart, making him weak. He wanted to smile, but couldn’t. Instead, he leaned forward and touched his forehead to hers.

“And I love you,” he said. He had never spoken truer words.

Rey had been a lifeline when he was drowning, a beacon of light in the dark universe he’d created. If a woman so luminous could love a creature like him, Kylo thought, then surely there was still goodness and light left inside of him. There had to be. A man could not survive on darkness alone.

But darkness of a sort was building in him, something primal and unkind. He couldn’t control it. So he didn’t try to.

With one strong hand, he cupped her rear and drove her down hard onto his cock. Her back bowed and her skin pulled into tight wrinkles and when he took her breast into his mouth, she groaned from low in her belly. But he wasn’t finished. Rolling her to her back, he spread her legs and plunged deeper and deeper inside, until the full, sizable length of him was buried. He did it over and over and over again, unable to stop.

Clutching the blankets, she breathed his name, his real name.

“Ben . . . Ben . . . Ben . . .”

But he no longer knew who that was. No title he had ever claimed could define him in this moment. He was nobody. He was nothing.

The cabin walls shuddered and then fell away. The bed disappeared. Time held no sway in their middle place. Matter and energy were one. In the churning dark, her elements united with his and their shape became light.

Rey cried out and he found his release with her. In the very same breath.

The universe returned to them then. The cabin’s sturdy walls rematerialized. The lumpy mattress was again beneath them.

Falling against her, he pressed his lips to the damp skin between her breasts and felt her hammering heart begin to slow. In time, his heartbeat synched with hers and there was peace.

Peace . . . Ben Solo felt peace.

At long last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WRITING MUSIC:  
> Basically the whole Jane Eyre (2011) film score by Dario Marianelli but my favorites are "Yes!" and "Awaken"  
> (This is the most beautiful film score I've ever heard, hands down. It pulls all the feels right out of my heart.)


	11. Choice

Kylo Ren had never seen anything more beautiful than the dance of firelight on Rey’s bare skin. How drawn to her the light was. Even his own pale hand when spread against her ribcage seemed to possess an inward glow.

Neither one slept. But not because they couldn’t. A moment of choosing hung in the balance, a moment that sleep would only expedite. Kylo thought carefully about the words he would say to her when that moment finally arrived. Once he’d asked her to stay with him, to let the past die and begin anew. Funny, now he considered asking her the very same things.

Already he felt the sorrow of a lost future. He wanted more time to kiss her warm skin, to touch it, to taste it. He wanted years of practice learning her body, of discovering every route to her pleasure. He wanted to talk and talk and talk to her until they spoke in a language only the two of them understood. He wanted to grow her verdant gardens and cook her savory meals. He wanted to massage her freckled shoulders every night until she fell asleep and awaken her every morning with a kiss. He wanted to give her a happy life. He wanted it more than anything.

Kylo thought of the Druyans. He understood that their bed, with its sloping middle depression, meant that they’d slept curled together and hadn’t retreated to opposite sides like husband and wife are wont to do. For more than thirty years they’d never needed anything more than this very small, very insignificant piece of the galaxy. They’d never needed more than each other. It was a life Kylo Ren had never known he wanted, but now felt unable to live without.

“This place has changed you,” Rey finally said, pulling him from his slippery thoughts. She shifted against him and began tracing the contours of his long torso. “You almost seem . . . content.”

Dipping his head, he buried his nose in her hair and inhaled. “I am . . . almost.”

“I’m glad,” she said, but her voice was sotto, distant. After a minute her fingers stilled and she turned to her back. There were words on her lips—scores of them—but she couldn’t seem to give any of them life.

“How’d you find me?” he said, breaching the abyss so she didn’t have to. “Even I don’t know where I am.”

She angled her head to see him. “I had help. I didn’t recognize it at first. It wasn’t until I saw you again that I realized I already knew where you were.”

Kylo focused his gaze on the plump snowflakes colliding with the windowpane. “Luke,” he said. He didn’t need to see her reaction to know he was right. Luke had been with him since his first day in the forest. He’d helped him find fresh water, he’d led him to the Druyans’ cabin. He’d been the peculiar gravity that directed Kylo to the key. Luke had always been there for Kylo—keeping him alive and waiting. Waiting for Rey.

“Ben . . .” She stroked his face until he met her eyes again. “I didn’t come here to rescue you. Not really. I’ve tried that before . . . and failed.”

He wanted to tell her that she was wrong, that she’d saved him in a million different ways, but he knew what she was talking about. And he couldn’t refute it.

“Then why are you here?” he asked instead.

“For this,” she said and rolled to straddle his hips. He felt her warm, dewy center, felt himself harden against it. “Because I wanted you. I _needed_ you. I’m so tired of resisting and resisting and resisting. It’s all I do.” Kylo almost laughed, but already he was too drowned in desire to manage it. “It’s selfish, I know. I left a war to come here . . . I left a _war_.”

Her chest heaved and he tipped his lips forward to kiss it.

“I love you, despite everything,” she said. “And I wanted you to know it . . . I wanted you to _feel_ it.” She clasped his head and held it to her rushing heart. “You’re the only thing in my life that feels right. The Jedi, the Resistance, the war—none of it makes sense anymore.”

“No, it doesn’t,” he said. He opened his mouth to breathe her in, to find her essence, but his senses had become inadequate.

“We blow up their weapons—they buy new ones. They kill our people—more run to our cause. It will never end,” she murmured, rocking against him. “It will never end.”

“No, it won’t.”

Kylo found Rey’s lips and kissed her with every iota of love his soul had ever known. He kissed her as if it was the very first kiss to ever occur, the very first act of love in a hot, new galaxy. Everything depended upon this kiss. Everything depended upon their union.

Again the cabin walls fell away and again they were suspended in a grayish void. Power rippled through their veins, joining their bodies in a globe of pure light. The shock of it forced their lips apart, forced them to look and see what their love had unlocked—admittance to another realm, to another plane of existence. From this place, any future was attainable so long as love commanded it. Any life could be saved. Any war could be ended.

He felt them all here, inside the void . . . his mother, his father. And Luke. There were others too, faces he knew and some he did not. His grandfather and his namesake were among them, these heroes of a bygone time. They smiled and their forgiveness seeped into him and it healed him. It made him whole as he’d been in the very beginning, when love created him.

A sob built in Kylo Ren’s chest. His body couldn’t handle it. His rigid matter was no match for this wild energy. He knew if he stayed too long in this place that it would consume him, knew that his body would simply vanish inside the tangled blankets.

“No,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut. He wasn’t ready to move on, even if Rey moved on with him. Their purpose in the solid world had not yet been fulfilled.

When he opened his eyes, he was back inside the cabin, back in Rey’s arms. His muscles ached and pain pricked his fingertips. His whole body trembled, but Rey was trembling too, so they held each other until it subsided. Kylo Ren’s choice was made. He’d made it the very second he saw Rey in that lush green forest on Takodana. He’d chosen to follow her, to follow love . . . he just hadn’t known it. Now he knew. Now he knew _exactly_ what he had to do.

Later, when Kylo stood naked before the wardrobe, Rey came to him and pressed her warm skin to his. He thumbed the black fabric of his supreme leader’s outfit as he spoke. “I was wrong when I said to let the past die. I have to face it. I can’t let go.”

She kissed the scar on his shoulder. “Maybe not,” she said. “But you can let it rest.” Somehow they were the very words he needed to hear.

When they finally left the cabin, only a few orange embers glowed within the hearth. The journals were tucked back inside the box and the key set inside the lock. His black suit hung in the closet amongst the Druyans’ handmade clothes and the blankets were drawn over the uneven mattress. Dawn slipped inside through the window.

Unafraid for the first time in his life, Kylo Ren followed Rey of Jakku up the ramp of the Millennium Falcon, and as the door closed on the place he had called home all these long, lonely months, he sent a silent outpouring of gratitude for the life it had helped him reclaim. Finally, after more than a decade of searching, he’d found the future he wanted—could see it clearly, hanging in the days, the hours, the minutes before him—and there was only one way to reach it. He took Rey’s hand and smiled.

They had a war to end.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was Kylo's story, but Rey has her own and it answers a lot of the questions posed here. I haven't written it yet. Perhaps if there's enough interest I'll set aside some time to work on it. Or, who knows, it may demand to be written as the stories in my head often do. We shall see. In the meantime, thanks for reading!
> 
> WRITING MUSIC:  
> "This is Magic" by Majical Cloudz  
> "Rebirth" by Vancouver Sleep Clinic


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